Re: OPEN and the Road to Their Goal
OoC: I'm deeply sorry, Niku. There is no excuse for how long it took me to reply. I make you a PROMISE that I'll post faster next time.
BiC:
The morning mist is parted,
A cat’s eye gleams,
Quiet feet belie a loud soul,
She sits, watching.
~blank verse.
She stood on all fours, her back arched, knees touching elbows. “It looks like we’re finally here, Sukoshi,” Neko purred, waving her tail so smoothly, it mimicked the motion of the waves. The little cat replied in a manner of which she had no natural understanding. “Myu, myu myu,” he said, “(If that’s where you want to go, then that’s where we are).” As compact as she was, she managed to make herself even lower after hearing him. “I’m not worried,” she responded, smiling, grinning, rather, “I don’t think anyone has what it takes to handle a real ninja.”
“Myu, myu (A real ninja like yourself)?”
“Oh, don’t complain. I still have all of the day to register for this thing. The tournament doesn’t actually start until tomorrow.”
With that, she was gone from the treetops. From her high perch, a tree on the most scenic edge of a hill hock, she had a marvelous view of the morning. The orange morning sun rose in a direction she had not been facing. It lit up behind the city she had been able to ignore. The small gathering of huts nearby was the only piece of scenery that caught her eye. The hilly, sometimes rocky, southlands leveled out as they made their way to the huts, turning into a flatland a fair distance before they hit the town, and a great distance before they hit the city. From where she had been, it had been easy to see just where she needed to go to safely reach the bottom. From her perch, she could have even seen herself making her way down and across the hills.
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The feline ninja arrived within the compact town without incident, and without notice. She made no effort to arrive stealthily, but she arrived without notice anyways. As early in the day she thought she had arrived, the town was already alive with activity. It was too alive to notice that she had entered. For such a scarce place, there was no scarcity in the population. People of all kinds took up standing room in the dirt streets, which were less street and more worn earth. Were Neko a less focused person, something which she definitely was, she would have become distracted by the energy of the gathering, so that was exactly what she became. One kind of person she always noticed was the male kind of person. The trail of muscular, mostly handsome men led her straight to one of the few buildings larger than shack height, the cantina.
It was nearly a new record for her. After being in the town for a grand total of ten minutes, she finally said, “Let’s hit the bar.” At such an early hour, it was a record for the earliest sojourn and the soonest after arriving at the village/town/city. She went into the cantina to find that, despite its size, it was all but empty, with the exception of the bottles, the tables, and one or two folks. None of them were the type of person she enjoyed having a drink with. A couple of them were obviously old masters of the drunken fist. They drank their brains away while hardly doing anything else. The last one was simply an older gentleman who sat and nursed his drink. After finally listening to the line he had been repeating to her, she took Sukoshi’s advice, and began to search for the place her invitation invited her.
Registration, although it sounded important, went by without anything even remarkably close to an incident. Neko was, after all, the only one who had come to register within the last three days, and was expected to be the very last one to enter. She was forced let out an exaggerated laugh every time the receptionist spoke. Haze was the woman’s name. She noted the name so she could remember to blind side the woman if they ever met on the worn earth. Even with said annoyance, registration went smoothly. The end result, though, was hardly satisfying. The place she would be staying was a one room cabin along with three other people, not including her little companion. She began in the direction the woman pointed her in. To look on the bright side, or no. Her mind was telling her no, but her body was telling her yes.
That was, until she actually saw the place she would be staying. “Totally not cool,” she groaned the moment she spotted it. Just the sight of it made her imagine the kind of people she would be sleeping adjacent to. Rather than imagine for too long, she whined to Sukoshi. Odorous, heavy, brazen. Stinking, fat, annoying. She would be cursed with such people. Men had a tendency to stink -not to say that women do not smell every once in a while- especially after a day devoted to nothing but martial arts. Men had a tendency to throw their bulk around -not to say that women do not throw their “bulk” around every once in a while- especially after working hard to get it. Men had a tendency to have an ego -not to say that women do not have their own quirks of self image- especially when they fight.
A wash of relief came over her when she noticed who was leaving the cabin. It was a petite, young girl. As the girl made pleasantries with the morning, Neko hurried past the crowd to try and catch her before she went anywhere. Lo, they met. As she approached, a shin sized human who floated in the air tapped the girl on the shoulder, pointing at her. “Are you staying in this shack?” she asked casually, surprising the girl, despite the warning. “Yes, I am,” she replied, not overtly nervous, but close enough. “Jaa, you must be Rika,” she continued, her voice carrying a more friendly ring, “Yoroshiku. Looks like we’re going to be rooming together for this thing.” With that, the girl picked up, too. “Then you must be Nekome, Miss Nagisa. Or are you the mystery person?”
“Hah. No, I’m not the mystery person, and I tend to go by Neko.”
“Miss Neko. Right.”
Capping off their short communication, the girl gave a polite bow, which the cat-girl promptly mimicked. “Allow me to introduce my friend,” Rika went on, signaling to the oversized fairy floating next to her, “This is Akira. We travel together.” The elf floated an inch closer. “How’r ya,” she replied succinctly. There was a moment’s pause before the feline ninja figured out that she should return the gesture. “This here is Sukoshi,” she said, raising an elbow in his direction, “We also travel together.” He meowed at them in response. At that point, it dawned on her what kind of person she was talking to, and how inappropriately matched to the situation she was. “Are you here to fight in this tournament they have going on?” she asked, eyeing the girl from head to foot. “Yes ma’am, I am,” she replied.
Neko shrugged it off. She had seen stranger. She herself had learned her movement Jutsu by the girl‘s age. “So,” she began, turning to look at the cabin, “Where are the other two who were assigned here?”
“I don’t really know,” the girl replied, sounding disappointed, “I haven’t even met them, yet.” That statement perplexed the feline ninja. After taking a second to piece together her thoughts, she raised her eyebrow, and turned her head to the girl. She said nothing. Just then, she was about to ask how that could be, but she stifled the question. It was conceivable that the remaining two were staying someplace else. If they were not arriving later that day, then they could have easily spent the three days or more someplace else. “Did I say something?” the girl asked, noticing her face. “Nah. Only wondering where they are.”
Then, something strange happened.
“Hark! Was there a cue in that sound?” someone proclaimed, loudly and suddenly, “It reigns from the sky down to the ground.” The two acquaintances examined their surroundings, but noticed nothing but other people noticing the shouting. “I appear and pose dramatically!” From out of nowhere, a man in all black fell from the sky, striking a cheesy pose. “From over the mountains. From over the stars!” He changed his pose. “I am the majestic. I am the powerful. I am the excellent. I am the beautiful.” In one quick motion, he kneeled down in front of Neko. “I am all the strength.” He spoke quietly, taking her hand and giving it what would have been a kiss. In one quick motion, he slid over to Rika. “I am all the passion.” He did the same to her before returning to his feet.
“And, if you’ll excuse my prompt entrance, I am your third team member, Black Shisho. But you may call me, simply, Shisho.”